The Problem With Sentiment
by They-Want-Me-To-Tap-Dance
Summary: Sentiment is downright cumbersome in daily interaction, but when tragedy strikes 6 months after John and Mary's wedding, the pain it delves out is excruciating. Sherlock wished he didn't have a heart like everyone insisted. His Vow was broken before he could protect the three lives he promised to cherish. Rated M just in case. Trigger warning: blood and occasional drug use.
1. Chapter 1

The Problem With Sentiment © Anaubrey Shannon

I don't own any part of the BBC Sherlock universe. I just exploit their reimagined characters to break everyone's hearts.

* * *

Mary supposed that whatever chances she had at happiness would always be fleeting, considering her past. She knew the odds were astronomical that she would ever remain with John once he knew who and what she really was, and yet John was willing to (literally) throw her past into the fire and be content, if you could even use such a word, to move on. Mary decided to embrace the opportunity, even revel in the domestic bliss she had been afforded, but she always felt that even this, having a husband and a baby on the way, was temporary.

Sherlock, for once, was inclined to join John and Mary for dinner one evening. Though he claimed he had the time because he wasn't on a case, it was more likely that it was because he was lonely or that he wanted to keep tabs on the happy couple, and quite right of him to do so periodically. The more Mary's stomach expanded, the harder it was for her to reach and sit up straight, particularly once she was six months.

Finishing off her plate, she leaned back and stretching her arms above her head, she felt it: a peculiar grumbling sensation in her abdomen.

"Ah," she exclaimed softly, wincing.

"Everything alright?" John inquired, a subtle look of alarm alight in his eyes.

"Fine, I think. I'll just excuse myself for a moment. I need the loo, probably."

She didn't miss the calculating look in Sherlock's eyes as she carefully rose from her chair.

Walking down the hall with her hands clasped underneath her belly, she made her way over to the toilet when she felt a more worrying sensation than the first: something like a rubber band snapping inside her, followed by an intense cramp that brought her to her knees just before she made it to the door.

"Ahh!" she exclaimed once more. Steadying herself on the doorframe, she placed a hand between her legs, dreading what she'd see. Her hand came away slick and red, bleeding.

"Mary?"

No no no no no no no no no. It couldn't be. She was only six months along. Why? Her mind racing, and knowing she needed to answer, she shouted the only thing she could think of:

"VATICAN CAMEOS!"

Judging by the response time, Mary could tell that John and Sherlock had been listening for anything out of place as soon as she'd left the table. Pulling out his mobile, John dialed 999, while Sherlock kneeled by her side.

The scene before Mary was just as vivid, dramatic, and horrifying as her nightmares. Sherlock was gripping her shoulders and trying to get her to make eye contact, when all she could do was look at the blood running down her thighs and pooling around her knees on the hardwood flooring.

"Mary…focus…eyes on me. Fever…? Internal bleeding…shoulder pain…"

"For the love of all that is holy, I'm FUCKING BLEEDING EVERYWHERE. STOP DIAGNOSING ME, SHERLOCK!"

She pushed him away, and he immediately stood and started pacing, his breath coming in quick and sharp gasps, having no outlet for the panic that was rising in him equally as fast as her own. Though prone to dramatics, outright panic was not something Sherlock exposed to the general public, Mary knew. Spouting logic was the only thing aside from receding into his mind palace that he did to keep calm, and having the latter occur would be disastrous given the current situation.

"Okay, okay, okay. Just keeping talking. List more symptoms. Tell me what's happening."

All three of them knew what was happening; the word simply hadn't been said outright yet.

While Sherlock was babbling about risk factors and statistics, she felt John's warm, strong arms wrap around her, rocking her back and forth as they waited for the ambulance.

"…the unfortunate conclusion is that you are going into premature labor. In the UK, 1 in 200 births ends in fetal death…"

Mary was starting to feel dizzy, her vision growing dark around the edges. She was bleeding more heavily than she thought, then.

It was awhile before she was aware of anything again.

Sherlock didn't understand what the use of having a heart was if it was so prone to breakage. Physically, the heart is one of the most fatal areas to receive a bullet. He'd witnessed a disturbing number of victims succumbing to a shot in the heart. The collection of major arteries and veins surrounding the heart usually ensured a quick death before help arrived.

Why did everyone insist that a heart felt emotional pain, when it was the limbic center of the brain that was responsible for emotional regulation? He supposed that because the heart was so responsive to emotional changes, the term "heartache" was coined thus. It would never make complete sense to him.

Sherlock wished he didn't have a heart right now. Had he not had one, like nearly everyone he met insisted, it wouldn't be pounding painfully against his ribs. He would not feel the flush of heat in his face and chest as his panic levels increased.

Without a heart, he could keep his agony over his stillborn goddaughter inside his head. Though he would rage, cry, scream, and kick, no one could see it, for he was inside his Mind Palace. All anyone would see outside of him was a man kneeling, elbows on his knees, hands and fingers forming a steeple in front of his face. Eyes closed, his form a perfect symbol of detachment and aloofness at the medical proceedings.

Those who took the time to know Sherlock were wise to his facade. Sherlock Holmes indeed had a heart, he felt pain in the places no one could see, and he knew he couldn't keep himself under control in front of Mary and John for long.

Inside of himself, Sherlock brought up a particular memory that always helped to keep him calm under ongoing anxiety. He would sit on the blank tiles of a hallway petting and stroking his childhood dog, Redbeard.

A memory was all he had left of his faithful animal companion, put down mercifully at his prime after the accident, and now a memory would be all he had of his goddaughter as well. The only moments he would have to recall would be watching her move from inside Mary. Both Redbeard and his goddaughter met violent and untimely ends, but unlike his dog, her life hadn't even begun properly before she was snatched away.

There was no doubt that interacting with Redbeard's memory was soothing, but he couldn't stop himself from wondering:

"Will all my loved ones be put down?"

Mary drifted back to consciousness feeling empty and drowsy. Unfortunately, she had been awake throughout the hellish pre-term labor. The doctors had offered to perform a D&amp;C, but she didn't have any desire for an invasive procedure if she could go through it naturally. Luckily, the labor emptied her uterus completely, so no further action was required aside from an IV and blood transfusion.

Her daughter had come out her already dead. She was appalled with herself for not noticing that something was going wrong. Her baby wasn't very active in the first place, but wouldn't she have been able to detect it if she had been too quiet?

Once out, the nurse cleaned off and swaddled the baby for Mary to hold. She couldn't believe how tiny and purple her daughter was, how she was still warm to the touch. For a moment, Mary pretended she was a new mother with the love of her life cradled and squirming in her arms. John didn't have his head bowed in unspeakable grief; in fact his eyes were streaming with tears of joy. Sherlock wasn't in the corner of the room because he was deep in the confines of his Mind Palace. He was simply wary of the new baby and wasn't sure how to react.

But the emptiness in Mary's slowly deflating abdomen was a sick reminder of her reality. John took one look at their child before burying his face in the blankets of Mary's hospital bed, his body visibly shaking with muffled sobs. She took one last look before covering her sweet baby's face for good. She wondered if it had even been wise to look at all, for the image would plague her nightmares for years to come.

It was just as well that Sherlock had left before she could say anything to him, for her daughter had taken her words away.

Sherlock didn't know quite what to do when he returned to Baker Street. He descended the stairs, slowly and deliberately, counting the 17 steps up to the flat. It took him more than once to try and unlock the door, for his hands were trembling violently, making it difficult for him to get the key in the lock. If he had a chance to observe himself in a mirror at this moment, his hands were the only giveaway to the tempestuous emotions roiling deep inside of him. Emotional suppression was as normal to him as breathing, so why was he failing the one time it was absolutely crucial that he stay numb and unfeeling?

He was unusually lacking in energy. Normally, he would go about setting up his latest experiment in the kitchen, possibly to intently study some interesting specimen underneath his microscope, or maybe even make himself a cup of tea. As nice as tea sounded, he felt he couldn't even muster the energy or will power to do even that. It was different from when there were others around and he couldn't be bothered to it if someone else was capable of putting the kettle on. There was no energy or will power for him to call upon. He felt hollow. Also, very tired.

He decided to go to straight to bed, noting that this drastic deviation from his normal behavior was something he should be concerned about at a later date. He never went to bed when he was tired, for he would normally stay up until it was impossible for him to remain conscious, especially when he was on a case. Some of those strings of sleepless nights, he would use nicotine patches to prolong wakefulness, often affixing more patches to his arms than was medically advisable. He thought vaguely that he might employ that method just now, but his desire to just give in to this whim was stronger.

Upon entering his room, he took off his shoes, socks and suit jacket, but he otherwise remained dressed. He pulled the bed covers aside, collapsing bonelessly on the mattress before enfolding himself in the duvet, his back toward the door. Sleep didn't come, as he expected, but his other senses heightened for lack of any other activity. He could hear the distinct shuffling sounds of Mrs. Hudson roaming around the flat. She'd likely heard the news and was probably making tea for the both of them. The whistle of the kettle minutes later confirmed his theory.

"Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson called out softly by the door. He hadn't closed it behind him.

When she received no response, she merely shouldered the door open all the way, setting a tea tray on the nightstand next to Sherlock's bedside.

"Oh dear." she sighed. She hadn't failed to notice Sherlock's atypical behavior either. Without a word, she poured tea for herself, leaving the rest for him before departing to her flat downstairs.

When Sherlock resurfaced from his mind about three hours later, he turned in bed to find a small glass of what he determined to be gin accompanying the tea on the nightstand. The tea had gone cold from his neglect; so there really wasn't much use of him drinking either of the offerings, but he could at least distantly admire Mrs. Hudson's gesture.

John hadn't heard from Sherlock since the stillbirth. He wondered if it had been selfish of him to stay away from Baker Street, because he was confident that Sherlock would be closed off and silent. While it didn't bother him under normal circumstances, having an impassive, usually unmoving, and non-vocal Sherlock around him would have been too much for him to bear at this time. He'd had enough stillness from his dead child and despondent wife. He didn't know how he would handle it if he were subjected to the same behavior from his best friend.

As much as it pained him, John had to face the one person with whom he was fearful of interacting. He knew he had to fetch Sherlock today, which meant he had to come face to face with his selfishness for not wanting to put up with anyone. This was the day he could not give in again, as he had for the past several days, for today was his daughter's funeral.

Visiting Baker Street today was harder than any of the other times he had done so when the circumstances weren't the best. Amongst them, there was the day he visited Mrs. Hudson after months of silence, during the time he thought Sherlock was dead, and additionally the time he came up to visit Sherlock after he and Mary pulled him out of the bonfire on Guy Fawkes night. It was bad enough that previous to his rescue, he'd nutted Sherlock in his nose the night he'd revealed himself as alive to John. The amount of blood that had spurted from his best friend's nostrils seconds after the impact had been a spectacular sight.

Best friend. He smiled in spite of himself at the thought that no matter what he'd done to or for John over the years, John never stopped calling Sherlock his best friend. As he climbed up to the flat, he felt anxious at the thought that he might have left his best friend during a time when he probably needed him, no matter if John had to endure his stillness and impassive silence.

Opening the door, John was greeted by an unusual smell: that of baked goods. This was odd and disconcerting, for whenever he smelled something like this, the scents originated from downstairs, in Mrs. Hudson's flat. She never did any baking in Sherlock's kitchen because he often had experiments inside his oven. The only conclusion John could come to as he hesitantly set his keys aside was that it was Sherlock who was responsible.

He would rather not have had his conclusion confirmed when he saw the product of Sherlock's uncharacteristic culinary pursuit sitting on the table: an elegantly decorated, single tier cake. It would have merely been weird to John, but he choked when he read the inscription, written in large letters with black icing:

"_**HAPPY STILLBIRTH-DAY, CHILD." **_

Layers of revulsion and anger kept stacking up inside John as he noticed that near the top of the inscription, a numeral candle "zero" was stuck in the cake. It looked like the candle had been lit an hour ago and had since burnt out.

Not having any means of directing his rage, he picked up the cake and scraped it down the garbage disposal with his bare hands. He didn't add water before flipping the switch on, as he wanted to completely obliterate the cake as ruthlessly as possible. The screeching and scraping sound the drain emitted as the cake ceased to exist was slightly mollifying, but it didn't stop him from yelling out:

"SHERLOCK! WHAT THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU PLAYING AT?"

John heard a groan coming from the bedroom. The unadulterated rage he felt moments ago, while not gone, had fizzled out a considerable degree.

"Sherlock?" he called out, much more evenly.

Opening the door, he wondered how many things he would see today that he would have given anything to erase from his mind. He took note first of the tea setup on the night stand, the beverage long cold, accompanied by a half glass of what appeared to be some form of alcohol.

He next took in Sherlock's appearance. He was lying on his stomach in bed, head turned away from the nightstand, his left arm hanging off to the side. He was still dressed and his hair was in complete disarray. Looking down, horrified, John noticed a bottle of sleeping pills on the floor next to Sherlock's hand.

He felt his heart skip a beat. He sprung into action, rolling Sherlock onto his back and propping his head up, slapping his face. Taking up the bottle, he noted that the pills were actually prescribed to him, for when his post-traumatic nightmares were severe. He shook the container. It seemed as though most of the pills were still in the bottle, so John could rule out a suicide attempt, unless he'd taken something else with them, noting the alcohol present in the room. He felt Sherlock's forehead and checked his breathing and pulse.

"Sherlock! Come on, say something, please!"

Everything was in normal range, if a little slow, but he wasn't dead or dying, and there was no evidence of vomit aspiration. So why would he not respond to having his face slapped, even if he was apparently deeply asleep? If he had taken only the recommended dose (unlikely), he would surely be woken more easily. He had to find out how many pills Sherlock had taken, but it wouldn't be any help if he didn't have him awake to ask. Perhaps he needed to find something stronger than a slap to rouse him, maybe a strong or distinct odor…

His brain jarred. Smelling salts. He'd used them on Sherlock before, when he'd been knocked out cold during a dangerous case. John rushed over to the medicine cabinet, searching frantically for where he assumed the salts were still stored for easy access. His first guess was correct.

Finding what he needed, he went back over and snapped a capsule in half, wafting it under Sherlock's nose.

The effect was immediate, thankfully.

"Ugh! Bloody hell, don't they make those without ammonia these days?!" exclaimed Sherlock who, luckily, sounded lucid.

He sat up slowly, head held in his hand, the other still rubbing at his nostrils. Looking up, he met John's stern gaze.

"Mind telling me how many of my sleeping pills you took and why you baked that cake?" he asked with threatening timbre in his voice. Sherlock was unaffected by the tone, but he didn't feel much like dodging the issue.

"I felt like sleeping for once, but leave it to my transport to deny me the opportunity when I actually desired it, so I took five pills." He stated bluntly.

"Five! Jesus!" John said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"You know my history with barbiturates. My tolerance is still considerably high."

"And the cake? What excuse could you possibly have for that? Your idea of a joke?" John questioned further. The roiling anger was rising back up, so continuing to talk would either make it worse or keep him under control for a little bit longer.

"Oh, I meant to dispose of that. I had done a couple lines of cocaine beforehand, so clearly my decisions were poor ones last night."

"Fucking hell, you must be superhuman. Ozzy Osbourne doesn't have anything on your tolerance level."

"I'm not stupid enough to take stimulants and sedatives at the same time. I came down from the cocaine first."

"I should bloody well think you wouldn't be able to sleep when you wanted, seeing as you snorted a load of cocaine beforehand! I swear you say these things just to see if I'll have a heart attack before you!"

John realized as soon as he said those words that he might have gone too far. He could see the hardening look in Sherlock's eyes. He knew the look, for it was reserved for those he wanted to impart considerable amounts of scorn for their idiocy. He'd never been on the receiving end of this look. He hoped he would never earn it again.

"Can you really be that slow, John? What do you think goes on in my mind? '_Oh, I think I'll have a kip right now. Maybe I'll just snort a load of divits to speed things along!' _ No, I haven't been able to sleep since I left you and Mary at the hospital. The night before last was hellish, to say the least, so I decided last night I would do some cocaine because I knew I wasn't going to sleep anyway. It certainly works more efficiently than plastering my skin with nicotine patches!"

Sherlock was breathing rapidly by the end of his outburst. It was clear that he hadn't intended to say as much as he had. He turned his back, and said in a resigned voice:

"I can only conclude that the primary reason you came here was to fetch me for the funeral today, your outburst at my behavior having been an unfortunate aside. I'll be ready to leave soon."

Sherlock turned to place a hand in the middle of John's back and steered him out of the bedroom before closing it in his face.

After so much anger, John was feeling numb once more. Sherlock emerged five minutes later dressed in a suit only differing in style from his normal attire with the dark grey dress shirt underneath the jacket. He had what looked like a cup full of tea in one hand and a now empty glass in another. John's eyes widened as Sherlock downed the whole of the cup's contents in one go.

"Have you just drunk a cup of cold tea from two days ago?" John felt mildly disgusted at what he'd witnessed.

"Yes, and with gin mixed in as well. Hendrick's, I believe."

John had run out of words and Sherlock supplied no further conversation. They avoided each other's gaze as the pair of them descended the stairs in order to head for the graveyard.

* * *

**A/N: 2/7/2015**

I made corrections to this chapter once I did more (grim) research. A miscarriage and a stillbirth are not the same thing, I've come to learn, so my corrections reflect that. This is such a sad story, but I hope I can leave anyone reading faithfully or passing by feeling hopeful by the end.

Also, since it will be roughly a year and a half before the 4th series of Sherlock happens, this timeline occurs in spite of what might happen in the S4 universe. BABY WATSON DYING HAD BETTER NOT BECOME CANON. It will make me immeasurably sad.

Thanks lovelies!

They-Want-Me-To-Tap-Dance


	2. Chapter 2

Mary's daughter was swaddled still. This time it was a shroud, rather than hospital blankets, the face completely obscured. Strangely enough, Sherlock had volunteered to hold the bundle up until the internment, and he would be the one to lay her to rest. He was perfectly in character with his piercing gaze and stock-still posture, aside from the slight rocking motion of his arms. He hadn't had a chance to hold his goddaughter at the hospital.

Sherlock's former grave was dug up for the service. Although a body resided in the simple, un-lacquered casket sunk deep in the ground, the main importance was for weight, when the pallbearers shouldered their unfortunate delivery so many years ago. Inside it was a man whose life was just another pawn in a terrible scheme. His sacrifice was not in vain, for indeed, Sherlock stopped being dead.

Now, the grave marked a resting place for an even larger sacrifice. A child who did nothing but grow and kick, and press on Mummy's bladder at the most inopportune times. She would never do so again. The morning of the funeral, Mary needed the toilet as always, but the schedule was off. Her bladder was simply full. Not squashed down to a smaller capacity because a living being was sitting on it. She'd drunk too much tea the previous evening, and she'd not been coerced into any midnight strolls to the washroom. So it was the morning, and all she needed to do was pee. She's left with a fuller bladder capacity, but no baby, not anymore. She would gladly live the rest of her life with a bladder the size of a walnut if she could again feel signs of a baby kicking, punching, and sitting, biding its time before meeting the world.

Mary felt breathless standing at the podium; a small crowd of loved ones expecting her to say something. She stared above all their eyes, her own filling with tears that spilled down her cheeks passively. She didn't blink or wipe them away. Her lips trembled, and she made a small "buh" noise before realizing she had nothing prepared to say. So she said the first thing that came to her mind:

"I've got liquids spilling out of me, and they're not because of my baby running amok inside me. She's not making me need the loo 6 times an hour. She isn't making my hormones go crazy, having me cry over stupid things. I hate it."

She choked, thinking she would say more, but couldn't go on. Saying much more would expose her more than she wanted. Hysterics in front of a crowd was something she dearly wished to avoid. She could melt down in private later, she decided. John stood to fetch her, simultaneously supporting and steering her by the shoulders back to their seats.

The couple waited with bated breath as Sherlock made his way to the grave. Kneeling, he gently placed the shrouded body in the frame nailed to the exposed casket. A folded white sheet lay at the foot. He took it, and tucked the fabric into the frame, over the baby, almost as though to tuck her in for bed. Using the second cloth provided, black in contrast to the swaddling and sheet, Sherlock shook it out and let the breeze spread it properly before letting it fall. It floated ethereally down over both decedents and their respective containers.

Sherlock gazed with a mixture of tenderness and sorrow for a moment before walking to the podium. John noticed his gait was stiff and reluctant, if only just slightly. It would appear to be a moderate pace to most anyone else. Sherlock rarely expressed his emotions openly, so John's ability to read the smallest nuance in his body language was invaluable. It was terrible that he had to use this keenly honed ability of observation for this purpose, and his heart broke a little more for his friend.

Mary and John looked up as Sherlock took his place at the stand. It struck the both of them the crude reversal of their position since their wedding, waiting for Sherlock to make his speech, not knowing what they would hear from him. They had expected something along the lines of horrifying and offensive for his best man speech. It had a touch of it, always his signature, but it served a greater purpose to move the both of them to tears. They knew this time to expect something beautiful and eloquent, but for all the wrong reasons.

"The first impression most people have of me is that by and large, I have little interest in the living. They complain, are full of excessive emotions and sentiment, very little logic, and are highly undependable. I handle the dead as nonchalantly as others take their tea and breakfast.

There is nothing better for me than an experiment on the various body parts I store in the fridge. My callousness stems from the fact that body parts are objects, no longer attached or owned by anything but the morgue. The sentimental value is gone when the brain has died and the pieces are separated. It isn't a person anymore. It turns to they, and they are experiments that serve a greater purpose in science.

Today, I have not held a body part. I have held a person, the owner of which would have been my goddaughter, had she lived. The only reason I am the one to put her in the ground is because parents should never have to bury their children. Though the parents sitting before me will have unwillingly lived through this exceedingly cruel ordeal, I could at the very least take the burden of the physical act off their hands."

Sherlock paused. Mary let out an almost imperceptible moan and John sighed heavily. It had seemed perverse to them when Sherlock had insisted that he hold the child for the service, but now the request made sense. Neither of them knew how they should feel, but they supposed guilt over their small respite was prominent and maybe acceptable.

"From my often expressed dislike of most humans, there would naturally be a supposition that I hate children. The fact is, that it couldn't be further from the truth. It is adults that I am weary of on a daily basis. Their words have to be read carefully and rarely say exactly what they intend. Children, on the other hand, come exactly as they are. What you hear from them comes unfiltered, having not yet formed a net of social conventions to sift their thoughts. They are curious and engaging, and their emotions are expressed bodily as well as verbally. They ask questions and want answers. They are great companions in their simplicity and forwardness.

My goddaughter's first word would have been "murder" if I had anything to do with it,"

Despite the morbidity of the situation, John and Mary couldn't help but chuckle at little at this "what-if". Of course Sherlock would have done this. He would for certain have made sure she would have an expansive vocabulary before age 5. She would have been raised to be precocious if he had any say in her upbringing.

"She and I would play Cluedo, and I would bring her to the less dangerous crime scenes I investigate. She would be as intimate with the morgue and Molly Hooper as a primary school teacher and a playroom. But alas, it won't be. There are three people in this graveyard freshly childless today. Rest assured, the pain is keenly felt by us all."

With the end of the speech, Sherlock picked up a shovel and strode to fill the grave. Though it seemed horrid to John and Mary to let him do it alone, they knew he would rather go unassisted. They found that it was far more tolerable to watch him turn the earth, than have the gravediggers do the deed; it would have been far too impersonal for their taste, yet they couldn't bear to do it themselves, and Sherlock knew it.

When they had discussions about how Sherlock would likely literally do anything for them, just as he would have for John, they had to have realized that if Sherlock was willing to jump off a rooftop and let the whole world think he was dead for the sake of his only friends, the extent of his willingness would be infinite. They never imagined it would extend to him burying their child for them.

A contemplative silence was held, the only sound coming from dirt hitting wood, and the shovel being pitched back into the earth. The sound became more muffled as the act came to a close, and Sherlock tossed the shovel aside, rather forcefully, and strode swiftly from the graveyard without another word to anyone in attendance.


	3. Chapter 3

OH LORDY. I can't believe I left this barren for a year! It's odd, because all the ideas were swirling around in my brain. I wish I had a pitcher of creative juices that I could pour into my brain so that everything would come out, but at least I managed to do something!

Just as a warning, there is a graphic description of violence along with drug use. Read with caution.

This story is morphing more into Sherlock's interactions with people well known to the series. It will revolve around the tragedy, but will cover other themes.

Enjoy, let me know what you think, and I don't own anything!

* * *

Mary asked for a few minutes alone at the grave. John granted her that, and decided to see off the remaining mourners.

Once confident that she was unobserved, Mary reached into her purse to pull out a battered, charred USB stick. Her initials scrawled out in permanent marker were still visible somewhat, and the protective sealing had burst around the aluminium casing. Turning it over in her palm, she could tell the damage had completely corrupted the data. Unreadable. She was certain the reason she retrieved the stick from the ashes of the fireplace is because it had been a part of her, like an appendage. A blood-soaked, and by most accounts, _ugly_ appendage, but it contained everything she used to be. Throughout her career, if she didn't have the flash drive on her person, it was locked away in a safety deposit box. Since the memory stick was rendered obsolete, her past was effectively erased. Yet she felt an urge to have it close even so. The only people privy to her previous life at present are Sherlock, John, and more than likely His Nibs Senior: Mycroft Holmes.

Mary proceeded to bury the stick in a shallow hole in the earth covering the grave. Though this was not the circumstance for which she imagined disposing of the stick, it was better than trusting that neither of Sherlock's parents would discover it in their grate. This was disgustingly symbolic in too many ways, but fitting.

Striding back over to John, both of them agreed to check on Sherlock now that the service was finished. After witnessing Sherlock's instance of self-medicating, John needed to be sure nothing of the sort was being resumed outside of their supervision. Mary suggested they start by monitoring him jointly, and she elected to take a turn.

"Make sure you've left anything potentially lethal on the doorstep before you see him. I'm sure he doesn't need the help." John nervily remarked.

"Knowing the sorts of meanies Sherlock attracts, you ought to be comforted that several of his _loved ones_ are packing heat. I hope that statement was sarcastic rather than a hit below the belt, Doctor Watson." Mary's tone was playful, yet admonitory.

"Of course, Mrs. Watson." John countered. The humor exchanged between them felt lopsided in consideration of the current setting, but he tried not to think too much on it.

John only occasionally made references to Mary's former career, but they agreed to made light of it instead of him using it against her. Deep down, he knew he would forgive her, but it would be trying on his sanity to completely ignore that his wife used to kill people for money. It had gotten easier once Sherlock started cracking jokes about his shooting. If Sherlock could make jokes, John figured he might as well keep up. He left the car for Mary to drive to 221B and flagged down a taxi to head home.

Mary was curious to see how Sherlock was coping, considering what he put himself through in a matter of a day. He'd done superhuman amounts of cocaine, took enough sleeping pills to put down a small pony, he was subjected to smelling salts, he had downed a glass of gin and old tea, and buried a loved one in the space of so many hours. This was enough to drive anyone around the bend, so naturally she was filled with trepidation.

Ascending the stairs upon her arrival, before she had a chance to open the door to the flat, Sherlock called out:

"I can assure you I've not taken anything, even with the considerable window of opportunity I've had. If I'd wanted a spy, I'd expect my brother's people to have come round rather than you. Not your job description, I believe."

Mary always marveled Sherlock's exceptional hearing. It was heartening that his bender hadn't appeared to affect his performance.

"I've come over because I'm worried about you, not to spy on behalf of your brother or John for that matter, if that crossed your mind."

Sherlock was lying on the sofa, one arm draped over his head, the other dangling over the edge, hand brushing the floor. He'd changed into his pajamas and dressing gown.

"Tea?" she inquired. It apparently fixed everything, so she hoped the death of her baby wasn't too big a task for a cuppa to soothe. She decided on loose leaves for this instance.

"Please."

"No need to be polite for my grief." Mary quipped as she went along with the preparations.

"What if I feel like being kind today?" he gently retorted.

"Then by all means, go on. It's better than the cloying pity I've thus far received."

"I was keen to avoid all that and so left early, if you'll forgive the impropriety."

"I've noticed that habit. You left my wedding early, so I shouldn't expect much different for a funeral." She was a little taken aback at the blandness of her tone. The kettle clicked off and she filled the pot.

"I don't do well with large numbers of people. They tend to react the most violently to my observations when the emotions are intense. The happiness and misery associated with weddings and funerals respectively fall in that category."

"Understandable. I wish I'd had the luxury of leaving early. It seemed necessary for me to stay, but I was too absorbed in the moment to question what might have happened if I had left like you."

"Leaving the funeral early would have robbed you of the opportunity to dispose of your USB stick."

If Mary wasn't always firmly in control of her reactions, she might have scalded herself pouring the tea.

"How did you know?"

"You've been turning a small object around in your hand or from within a pocket for a couple weeks. You do it more often in a location you don't feel secure, which is anywhere you aren't home and alone, periodically checking that it is still on your person. Even after John chucked it in the fireplace at my parents' house, you still checked for it as you once did when the information was still readable once you'd retrieved it."

"How could you know it was destroyed in your fireplace, and more specifically that John did it? You didn't return to the house to find it."

"Before he and I left to meet Magnussen, I could smell it burning. The smell of electronics combusting is distinctively acrid. Since no one in my family had any business disposing of sensitive information in such a fashion, my deductions narrowed it down to you and John. Any sensitive information on you that you would want to be parted from was on the USB stick, which I knew you'd given to John. Since I would have detected a change in his demeanor had he read it, I deduced he'd chucked the USB stick into the fireplace at Christmas to make amends. He did it in front of you, otherwise you wouldn't have known where it was and wouldn't have been looking for it."

Mary set the tea on coffee table, musing over the deduction as she sat down on the portion of the sofa that had been previously occupied by Sherlock's outstretched legs. It never ceased to shock her how he could take nearly unrelated events and put together an accurate narrative. His skills would have been wasted in any other field of work.

"I'm surprised that you didn't see straight through me when we first met."

Sherlock sat up and chuckled wryly.

"Your cover was meticulously thought out and executed. The fact that you managed to only raise small suspicions for me to easily push aside is remarkable. I suppose sentiment had a play, too." He furrowed his brow before continuing.

"Before my hiatus, I would scare away John's girlfriends regularly with my deductions concerning them. It was mostly unintentional, despite what John believed. Out of respect to John and yourself, I kept my deductions to myself. Even from the moment I interrupted him proposing to you, I knew you two were committed."

"How noble of you." Mary knew there was a catch. She held Sherlock's gaze steadily even as she poured his tea, a challenging smile budding at the corners of her mouth. She offered a cup to him.

"John would have already been angry enough with me coming back from the dead without me deducing your life story, anyhow." He conceded, accepting the cup from Mary's outstretched hand. Taking a sip, he smiled.

"Tinderet? Surprising choice. I suppose you've had this before if you already know that it tastes best with milk."

"I've had it several times, so with your wide selection of teas, I thought I'd go with something decidedly not boring."

Sherlock held his cup aloft in a mock toast before curling up into his end of the couch. Mary did the same, and the pair lapsed into a comfortable silence.

"Mary Morstan was a stillborn." Mary Watson remarked quietly.

Sherlock's gaze shifted from his tea to scrutinize her.

"Yes."

"I know you say that the universe is rarely so lazy, but I initially felt as though it was a coincidence-"

"-when it is in fact a peculiarity at minimum. The fact that the infant whose identity you claimed in place of your own was a stillborn only to find yourself experiencing a stillbirth later in life is an anomalous occurrence at best." Sherlock reasoned.

"An anomaly it may be, but it feels like a punishment. Because I took Mary Morstan's name, my baby took my real name as recompense. Burying that bloody memory stick in the grave only served to drive the symbolism home, seeing as my initials were written on it."

Several beats passed before Sherlock replied.

"Do you set much store into symbolism?"

"Only when I seek to rationalize my horrid behaviors, it seems."

"I think it is far from horrid. More like you compartmentalised aspects of yourself. You did it to survive. It was a coping mechanism. Symbolically leaving the parts of yourself that would endanger yourself and others with the memory stick helped you to live while still remaining genuine."

Mary's breath hitched and her eyes started streaming. He was right, of course.

"It baffles me how understanding you are even having been on the receiving end of my bullet. You're rational as ever while I feel absolutely wicked for what I did. It was the one time I couldn't immediately justify my actions."

But for the cup of tea in Sherlock's hands, he might have formed them in his trademark steeple before speaking.

"What you did was instinct and quick thinking. The difference is that I lived to be able to reason it out. Even in the split second before you shot me, I knew you didn't want to do it. Since killing me wasn't an option, you wounded me. All assassins kill, some with more bloodshed than others, but I find the mark of an exceptional one is good judgment rather than body count. Since you had the skill to incapacitate me instead of simply tying me up as a loose end, I had time to think. It wasn't something that required forgiveness in the first place."

"You are the last person I would expect to compliment me on my marksmanship." Mary said with a watery chuckle.

"Compared with what I've seen of others, your work is the cleanest I've seen and I'm lucky I get to admire it." Sherlock reached over to pour more tea for both of them.

"Seen many assassins on the job, then?" Mary said without a trace of irony.

"A few, but the majority I've witnessed were cold-blooded executioners. One in particular sticks out in the mind."

"Regale me."

Sherlock mindfully took a sip from his cup before continuing.

"Moriarty had fingers in many pies, even the ones that didn't seem important in the grand scheme of his network. My undercover work led me to a human trafficking ring in Brazil, run by a man called Adriano Vihaio. He was ruthless and was less than conscientious, and I would label him a butcher rather than an assassin. Vihaio was the kind of self-serving scum who treated his "stock" of women as expendable. Chivalry and respect need not apply in this trade, but he was particularly nasty. Operating primarily in the slums gave him the advantage of women coming to him to earn money as servants abroad in hope of better money, and they would summarily be entrapped into what is essentially domestic slavery. The rest earned a pittance working as prostitutes, though many never saw a single '_real'* _for their suffering_. _There were girls as young as 10 selling themselves.

"It was my mission to kill Vihaio and make it look like an accident. Over the course of 3 months, I infiltrated his ranks posing as one of the clients. I became a "regular" to Vihaio, but I had a different reputation with the women and girls. To them I was the "cliente repousante", or "restful client" because I wouldn't do anything with them. I wanted to give as many of them as possible a guarantee of safety, giving them the means to leave. I wouldn't offer it until they'd "seen" me several times. All the while, Vihaio would drop hints here and there about his employment by Moriarty. The idiot even gave me ideas as to where I would be headed next.  
Vihaio was never blessed with intelligence, but being a paranoid drug addict only amplified his significant stupidity. Providing him with cocaine through my brother's men was in part how I gained his confidence and paid for my visits.

"That combination very nearly destroyed everything I worked for when he eventually suspected that he had a mole within his ranks. He gathered a couple of his friends of whom he was suspicious, at least 15 of his girls, and myself into a room and started shouting about there being a mole. Half of the girls knew it was me and kept their silence; the others were unaware. When he was met with silence, Vihaio began to slaughter the girls one by one in a sadistic attempt to get someone to come forward. He wasn't neat about it. He stabbed them in their necks multiple times and tossed them aside. Ten of them were dead by the time he was finished.

"As much as I wanted to expunge him right there, blowing my cover would have wasted the lives he'd taken and endangered the surviving girls.

"Staying cool until I could set a trap for Vihaio later in the night was a monumental feat of will power, waiting all through the night during one of his drug parties. Finding a moment to excuse myself, I lay in wait in his bedroom for his return. I choked him out and tied him to his bed. Interrogating him was easy and the coward gave me everything I needed before I injected him with a lethal dose of cocaine. I got rid of the bonds and I left without a trace. I could have imagined far more colorful ways to end him, but interrogation and extermination were my only orders."

Mary had never heard Sherlock go in depth about any of his experiences during his two years spent "deceased". She suspected this was something that John had never heard before. She didn't need to speculate why she was being privileged with this information for long.

"I've told you this to impress upon you that I understand in part what you have gone through in your life before now. The choices involved in voluntarily taking lives are much more complex than any non-assassin would ever consider. I know you have at some point seen as much or more bloodshed not by your hands as myself. The cries and death rattles of those murdered girls still ring in my ears, and I am sure you have more demons than what have been uncovered. I don't need to forgive you for shooting me because of all the options you had, you chose the one that had the best eventual outcome. You are far from the wicked woman you think you are, and it is illogical and ludicrous that you deserve to have your baby taken from you because of who you were."

Sherlock looked at his tea, and set it aside with a distasteful glance. Telling that story had left a bad taste in his mouth.

This matter-of-fact conversation had turned into a very personal discussion, and oddly enough, it lifted Mary's spirits. Sherlock was making a point of not speaking anymore by curling up into the sofa with his face against the cushions. Mary settled herself down more into her seat, content in a way that superseded even this recent tragedy, down to her core. Things were far from okay, but she felt like the burden of surviving had been lifted somewhat.

* * *

*real (rey-all)= official currency of Brazil


End file.
